As Paul Baker crouched in his bathtub, he ruminated how he had gotten there. His hands were shaking, dripping with sweat; one hand clutching a gun, the other, holding his left ear. The knots and the cramps were visible in the muscles of his back. His manicured nails now half the size of their beauty, and all bleeding. Body bare, vulnerable, he was like a child in this moment, scared of the outside world. Body was throbbing with invisible pain, shivers washing over his back. He pondered his actions, to the point of which his head throbbed. Questioned if he would have broken his routine to avoid this event. This was the day that Paul Baker was going to die. He knew this with such certainty, such clarity, in that he held the gun to his own temple. He began to rock. Monday, 36 hours earlier …show more content…
He then sat up in bed and cracked each first knuckle of every finger on his right hand. Then proceeded to strap on his watch; placing the buckle through the third hole, and aligning the watch so that it fell in the center of his wrist bones on his left arm. By 6:36am, coffee poured: black, breakfast being simplistic, light clean up. Toast and scrambled eggs, which was what he ate every Monday. A thump sounded at his front porch at exactly 7:00am, which meant his paper had arrived. He disliked reading the paper but enjoyed the exactness of delivery. He then dressed and brushed his teeth, careful to make sure that he did not lose count, however he never lost count. 24 up, 24 down, 16 on the left, 16 on the right, 15 on the top and bottom right and 15 on the top and bottom left, taking exactly 2 minutes to do. Paul knew this, he timed this for years, He tied his tie in 22 seconds, and took another minute and 34 seconds to take his medication and made the mental note to refill his prescription after work. Then he proceeded to check the house before he left for his 8am job, which would take 34 minutes to drive to the
Consequently, Andy’s soul withered further into hopelessness as each and every person who came to his rescue, turned their backs on him. Through a final desperate ambition, Andy broke free of the bonds that were pinning him down: “If it had not been for the jacket, he wouldn’t have been stabbed. The knife had not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife only hated the purple jacket. The jacket was a stupid, meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life. He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. Pain ripped fire across his body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm was free and the other. He rolled away from the jacket and layed quite still, breathing heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of rain and thinking: Rain is sweet, I’m Andy”. In these moments, Andy finally overcame his situation, only in a way not expected by most. Such depicted scenes are prime examples of human nature at it’s worst, as well as the horrors that lay within us. However, these events, although previously incomprehensible by his limited subconscious, led to a gradual enlightenment of the mind and heart. Furthermore, the experiences taught him
He then made his daily coffee and toast and took it to the living room sofa, he hated sitting on the table. The
The duration of this short story is spent by the narrator in his torture chamber, alone and afraid. Only rats accompany the narrator in his cell, still offering no comfort to his soul. “They were wild, bold, ravenous- their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for motionless on my part to make me their prey.” The narrator is undoubtedly driven into melancholy during this deplorable period as he struggles to exist alone. Hiding away in his mind, the narrator questions every sound he hears, fearing it will be his last. Conversations of life and death are held inside the mind of the narrator, as the severity of his situation and isolation drive him mad. As the pendulum starts to approach our main character a struggle of the mind occurs. The narrator begins to weigh the positives and negatives of death. “I prayed-I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force my self upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble. There was another interval of utter insensibility. It was brief, for upon again lapsing into life, I saw that there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum.” In this selection of text the narrator first wishes for death, asking God to speed the descent of the blade, but
Every movement of everyday must be functional. He timed himself buttoning his shirt to see which way was faster, top-bottom, or bottom-top. He timed himself shaving to see which way took longer, using to brushes to apply the shaving cream, or one.
My feet planted firm on the ground as I bit the inside of my cheeks to feel something. My pigtails and gray uniform forgotten along with my surroundings as I just watched death do his work. I didn’t feel like a kid anymore. The once peaceful scene turned into a mass of chaotic moments as soon as metal clashed on metal, and the remains of glass littered the floor of the street in front of the fenced gates of my school. My peers screamed loudly but the sound of the crash replayed in my head, but worst of all is that I saw the blond hair of the woman cover her face like a veil tainted red. My teacher ushered us to wait inside yet my mind was numb and my thoughts blurred as I heard the cries of the adults.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
In the short story Hands the main character, Wing Biddlebaum, is forced into isolation due to a traumatic event earlier in his life.1 William L. Phillips states, “The story was one called “Hands.” It was about a poor little man, beaten, pounded,...
While he was waiting for her to come, he opened his gray tweed jacket and pulled out his nine millimeter chrome plated gun from his – hung from the strap – inner pouch. He removed the bullets from the magazine, put the gun on the desk and stayed still for a while looking at it. It was glistening in the morning light. Soon after, he placed it along with the bullets in the first drawer, took off his well-pressed jacket, hung it on the back of his chair and sat down. He repeat-ed some ritual actions almost every single morning. He finally crossed his hands on the desk and waited for her to come.
‘My fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it’ (Page 20)
He got up and looked at his alarm clock. It read: 1:19 AM. He knew he was going to have trouble keeping awake in school. And then he remembered.
She woke up at 8:35, she got up, and got dressed, in a light blue T-Shirt with a pair of jeans. She then perambulation down to the kitchen from her bedroom upstairs to get breakfast. When she got into the kitchen she smelled the aroma of her Father’s famous biscuits and gravy.
My father passed away in 1991, two weeks before Christmas. I was 25 at the time but until then I had not grown up. I was still an ignorant youth that only cared about finding the next party. My role model was now gone, forcing me to reevaluate the direction my life was heading. I needed to reexamine some of the lessons he taught me through the years.
was heard at the time of the murder. The protagonist was waiting long and, “felt himself getting
...en a strange feeling down his spine again, as if something was breathing on his neck. He turned slowly… seeing if someone was behind him and then boom! The figure was right there, about seven feet away, trying to grab him with his big, skinny, hands, with his sharp and dark fingernails that could rip a man’s heart out… He fell down, so surprised by the strange figure.
OUCH! My leg crippled with pain. I tried to shuffle my way to the window, but it was excruciating. As my senses kicked back in, I felt pains shooting up and down my body. Peering down at my hands I screamed. My hands were covered in cold, congealed blood.